Pro-sex. Pro-porn. Pro-knowing the difference.

Carol Hunt: We need to talk about ‘bad sex’ to our children / Independent

Written by Carol Hunt for Independent. Originally published on July 28th, 2013.

“CINDY Gallop, British entrepreneur and founder of web (and TED Talk) sensation ‘Make Love Not Porn’, says we have to accept that children as young as eight are viewing pornography online.

One report revealed an ordinary young girl whose first experience of what “sex consisted of” was watching a gang rape online in a friend’s house. She was eight years old. As a mother of a nine-year-old boy and a 12-year-old girl, I, of course, don’t want to accept that this is true.

My babies looking at pornography? You’ve got to be joking! Why on earth would children be interested in looking at sex? And anyway, don’t I check their mobile devices and internet access? I have rules about smart phones and tablets and internet history. I have checks and blocks and do all the stuff that a responsible parent in the age of Google is supposed to do.

But, as far as my kids are concerned I’m still a technological Luddite. They were born to this stuff, whereas I – and so many parents like me – are only catching up. I have no idea what they are looking at in their friends’ homes. I don’t know what they see on a mate’s smart phone as they walk home from school. But I know that, in the very dangerous world of internet porn, of online child abuse, I need to arm them with every weapon I can.”